Vista Issue and my Solution

[jobe1022]

Let me start by saying. Hello everyone. I just signed up but have been reading for a few weeks now. Also please forgive me if this post seems like it jumps over the place. I wrote it all as it came to me. If you got any questions feel free to ask me.

I find that the main problem with Vista and sageTv is the way Vista handles the system Ram. It caches as much as it can into system ram in order to improve performance
Reference http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html
Vista will also allow ram to be used by the video card. You can veirfy this by going to the Video Card settings in vista. Now the ram alloted for use with the video card is by no means dedicated for only the video card. But if the there is a need for more video ram vista will use it.

So with that said. I was experiencing Jerky playback on my machine. I sorted this problem out by using the Microsoft Mpeg decoder that comes with vista. If you do a quick search the instructions are on this forum.

My last problem I ran into was Video would Slow down after watching a video for 10-15 mins. It happened especially when I was watching a recording and recording another at the same time. Especially when both were HD Content.


After getting Fed up with it last night I decided I would get to the root of the problem. after looking at my system resource use. I noticed that I only Had 4 megs of ram left. I wondered why I had so little left. Well after some searching online. I found out about a little program called superfetch. This program pretty much loads up with Windows Cache (Memory) with all Kinds of crap that it thinks you may use. As Soon as I disabled the Superfetch Service in Vista. I no longer had a slow down Issue.


My only problem right now. Not so much a problem more like a bug I guess. When ever I first open a Sagetv
The first time I go to play a video or watch live Tv I get a black screen.
So I have to stop the Video and Start the recording. On the 2nd opening I get Sound but no Video. So I close it again. Open it once more and on the 3rd time I get Audio and Video. I have not done a search in the forums for this just yet. Also I'm not really sure if I still have this problem. As I don't remember having to do this last night after I disabled Superfetch. I'm going to see if this was my issue with the decoder I was using. Ill be testing more tonight to see what thing now work correctly. Decoder and what not.

I imagine people with less ram probably get more serious problems with playback when their ram is full and is forced to write to the Pagefile

Side note:

I find that the SageTV Decoder has very poor De interlacing.
the Microsoft Mpeg Decoder does a very good job.
But I find that the ATI Cyberlink Decoder does the best job of the Decoders I have messed with.

---System Specs---
CPU: Intel Core 2 1.8@3Ghz
RAM: 2 Gigs of Gskill DDR2 800 @ 1000Mhz
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3P
Video: MSI RX2600XT Diamond Plus (Built in audio for HDMI audio output)
Hard Drives: Main Boot Drive: 80 Gig WD ATA 100, DVR Drive Seagate Sata 3.0 GB/s 7200 Rpm 500 gig
TV: 1080i Vizio 50 inch Plasma
Input to tv used: HDMI
DVD Drive: Some Crappy LG model(used to use it to play backups on my Xbox)

[GTwannabe]

Superfetch will cause you grief if you have less than 2 gigs of RAM with Vista 32-bit and 4gigs in Vista 64-bit. It causes excessive paging and will result in slow loading of system tray icons, heavy drive utilization, and possibly standby hangs. You can set the service to Manual until you install enough RAM for it to work properly.

Even if you have enough RAM, superfetch doesn't do all that much. If you close a browser window and restart it, the system doesn't have to touch the hard drive, but that's about it. For dedicated Sage usage, you won't miss it.

[david1234]

This was a great reminder for me- I've got a list (I put it together last week) of services that I plan to disable, but just haven't taken the time. So, I turned off superfetch last night because Bones was "skipping"... made a huge difference.

Now I've just got to get around to disabling the other 20 or 30 unwanted services on my list! Somebody please explain to me why the Tablet PC service runs by default in Vista?